The Weeds

One evening, my children and I were playing within the grounds of our home and I noticed that our flower beds had weeds. Instead of waiting for a hired hand, I decided to pull them out myself. As I started on this task, I observed that some of the weeds came off easily as I pulled, but others stuck fast and refused to come off. I should have gone back into the house and got a gardening tool that would have dealt with these stubborn roots, but I was too lazy to do so. As I kept weeding and observed this repeated pattern of some weeds coming off from the root completely and others stubbornly remaining in the soil I knew that my trouble with the weeds was not over because those roots that have stubbornly held on will grow again and disturb the peace of the flower beds.

The plight of my flower bed is no different from our lives. When we do not deal with issues from the root, we can be rest assured of a re-occurrence. Some people manage conflicts by repressing and suppressing their true emotions and feelings. They rarely, if ever disclose their true feelings on an issue. Around them is usually calm, but it is an uneasy calm because those repressed and suppressed issues will come up one day and cause an explosion that may be difficult to control or put out. The wiser approach is to deal with conflicts as they arise in a conciliatory manner.

Sometimes, people explode in anger not necessarily for what may have happened at that immediate instance, but for what happened yesterday, yester month or yester years that they refused or neglected to deal with or confront. It is far better to confront issues than to repress or suppress, but confrontation yields good fruits when the focus and aim is to build and not to scatter a relationship.

When I was much younger, I did not have a friendly or cheerful disposition. I was moody and melancholic. This attitude did not endear me to people. Not surprisingly I was disfavored in many quarters. People who had capacity to help me could not and would not help me because my attitude was a barrier. For many years I suffered from this attitude and I am sure that I must have lost a lot of benefits and blessings as a result. However, like the weeds in my yard, when I became aware and acknowledged that I had this attitude problem I decided to work on it. I deliberately began to put a smile on my face whether I felt like it or not. I went out of my way to make friends and greet people regularly. I started calling people on the phone just to find out how they were. I remembered birthdays and anniversaries and sent gifts too. I have always had a generous and compassionate nature, but for some reason the state of my heart never reflected on my face and attitude. And so instead of people embracing me in friendship, I was rejected by people. I worked on the disconnect between my heart and my attitude with everything I had on the inside because I knew that if I did not I will mess up my future as I did my past. Slowly, but surely the results began to show. I began to enjoy compliments to my face and also behind in my boss’s offices.

Presently, people think I have always been a friendly and cheerful person, but the fact is that what they see is an improvement of the old me. I had to work on myself by weeding what was unpleasant and poisonous to my dreams and goals. I could not live in denial that I had a problem. How long would I want to do that as the only person it would drain and poison is me.

We need to weed our lives of unpleasantness. There is a lady I know that is an incurable gossip. Pretty, smart and very intelligent, but she cannot help gossiping. Everywhere she goes she infects with her poisonous tongue. Whenever I find myself in her company I am extra careful and choosy with my words so that I do not hear my name in the rumor mill! This is surely a stubborn weed that must be pulled out. Could the root of this ‘weed’ be insecurity, approval addiction or a need for attention? Whatever it may be such roots must be uprooted from our lives so that our lives can breathe.

I remember a young lady whose preference for relationship was older and married men. She would never date young and single men. Her warped reason was that young single men did not know how to love and take care of a woman. When she started attending church regularly, she decided to see the pastor for counseling and it was in that session that it was revealed that she did not know her biological father and had never had a father figure in her life. She longed for a father’s love and this longing was the root reason she preferred dating older married men. In a misguided way, in their arms she felt like she was in her father’s arms.

I was lazy to go back into my house to pick up a garden tool to pull out the stubborn weeds in my flower beds, deferring it for another day, but in our life issues we must not defer or delay in identifying and pulling out roots that are negative to our lives. When this young woman in my narration discovered the root of her problem, she was able to find and apply the wisdom necessary for her situation. As I speak, she is married now with children.

As a serious farmer watches over his farm and makes out time to weed so we must watch over our lives and weed all poisonous and negative habits and attitudes.

We have been told several times that habits are easy to form, but difficult to break. This is true, but I have discovered that the spirit and will of man is more powerful than any stubborn habit. The only reason we appear to be overcome by bad habits is because we have not got a revelation or understanding of the injurious effect of that habit. As soon as you do, I can assure you that you will do everything in your power to root out a poisonous habit.
- by Ebiye Tammy-Koko